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Marketing Plans

A Strategic Approach to Growing Your Business

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Effective Market Planning is Much Like a Good Recipe…

It takes more than one ingredient to make the cake!

A properly developed plan is a break down of your entire business recipe.

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How are Your Ingredients?

Is your product or service as good as it can be? Could you improve your customer experience? Are you truly maximizing core competencies? Do you need better synergy and consistency

between sales, marketing and customer service? Are you efficiently investing in the right

marketing communication tools to best impact your target market?

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What Makes up a Typical Plan?

See Table of Contents Handout

1. Business Analysis (Situation Analysis)

2. Marketing Plan and Strategies

3. Budgets

4. Time Lines and Implementation

5. Continuous evaluation and adaptation

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Use Our Workbook as Your Guide

Workbook takes you through each step• Explains each plan element and requirements• Has worksheets for you to make notes• Uses real life examples to help you relate

Deviate where needed and adapt the process to fit your needs.

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Plan Development-A Deductive Approach

Think of the process as a funnel (page 4)

Start broad and drill down to a final solution

Each stage of the process links or builds onto the next stages to form a solid solution.

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Business AnalysisThe Foundation that Drives Your

Plan

Internal and external research on situation

Every aspect of your planning will be based on your answers or conclusions from this stage of the plan process

This is where most plans fail before they are developed.

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Demographics, Psychographics, Geography

Research resources (see pages 21,22)

Many times your demographic findings will surprise you.

Understanding a market’s psychographics can make all of your marketing easier • We can more easily create our message and select

our marketing tools to reach our market

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Target Market Needs / Core Competency Alignment

The defining phase of Bus. Analysis

Step 1: Identify market needs

Step 2: Define your core competencies

Step 3: Rank market needs

Step 4: Match market needs & competencies

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Market Trends

Good resources to identify trends are:• Your employees• Current customers• Trade associations• Trade Journals• The internet

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S. W. O. T.Analysis

A group effort is the best approach

Facilitator of the S.W.O.T. meeting is key!

Two step process:• Brainstorm• Refine the list to become more relevant

See list of S.W.O.T. questions on pgs 34,35

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Competitive Analysis

Objectivity is important

What are their strengths & weaknesses?

What are their core competencies?

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Product / Service Analysis

Do an analysis of your product/service mix• Where are you most profitable?• What % of total sales does each category make?• Where are you not maximizing sales?• Do you need better focus on a product/service?• Are there any new products/services to add?

Analyze key competitor product/services

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Time to Celebrate!

NOW WE CAN CREATE OUR PLAN STRATEGIES

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We Know Our Situation…Lets Create Our Map to Success

If you are creating a map you usually need a destination…..What will be yours?

Your plan strategies should be focused on achieving sales objectives.

See pg 41, and notice how sales objectives are at the top, and also the downward path of how everything rolls out on the chart.

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Defining Sales Objectives

Everything we strive for in planning centers on achieving sales objectives!

Best way to set sales goals are from the bottom up:• Set product or category specific goals• Breakdown goals by target group if it matters• Have monthly objectives

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Financial Objectives/Marketing Objectives

Typical financial objectives to consider• Increase gross profit for 2007 by x%• Increase net income for 2007 by x%• Reduce expenses for 2007 by x%

Typical marketing objectives to consider• Building brand equity or enhancing identity• Repositioning yourself in your market• Referral development activity• Loyalty programs

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Creating Your Positioning

What we really mean is market perception

This is where all of our analysis on market needs / core competencies come into play

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Creating the Actual Strategies

Keep your strategies manageable

Reference your business analysis results to define what is most important to address

Keep other staff members involved to create buy-in to the process

Types of strategies (see pages 52,53)

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Types of Strategies to Consider

Differentiation or positioning strategies Target or geography specific strategies Channel strategies (sales or distribution) Customer service strategies Sales or account strategies Branding strategies Advertising/market communication strategy Web strategies Product mix strategies

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Best Structure to Build Your Strategies

See page 57 for the best illustration

Strategies focus on financial or marketing goals you defined earlier

Be careful to keep your number of strategies manageable so that they can be executed

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Strategy Architecture

4 to 8 strategies – they are merely the focus

Strategies are hot air without proper support

Initiatives facilitate focus/strategy progress

Activities are the initiative drivers

Without this methodical strategically defined structure your strategies will sit!

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Defining Your Budgets

Why is setting budgets at the end instead of the beginning so important?

Create accountability in the budgeting process

Don’t just look at the expenses, analyze the return short and long term for future years!

Link sales budgets, expense budgets, and any breakeven analysis into your financials

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Setting Execution Time LinesAssigning

Responsibilities/Implementing

Your ability to effectively assign tasks to others will determine your plan’s success.

Create reasonable timelines

Get buy-in from all employees who this plan involves.

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Evaluate and Adapt

Planning is not an exact science• Market conditions change• Turnover occurs• Products mature and sales decline• Competition is also ever-changing

Have monthly variance meetings (key)